Reading Eagle: Susan L. Angstadt |
Most Pennsylvania death row inmates are housed in the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County, in the southwest corner of the state.

Robert Gilmore, above, is superintendent of the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County, right, where most Pennsylvania death row inmates are housed.

Reading Eagle: Susan L. Angstadt |
Most Pennsylvania death row inmates are housed in the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County, located in the southwest corner of the state..

As the superintendent of the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County, he oversees a staff of roughly 700 employees and more than 1,700 prisoners. The maximum security prison in western Pennsylvania houses eight in 10 of those under a death sentence in the commonwealth.

"I came up through corrections," said Gilmore, who was promoted to superintendent at Greene in March 2014.

He started his career in 1990 as a corrections officer at SCI Graterford, which also houses death row inmates in Montgomery County.

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Within three years, he had worked his way up to sergeant. Other promotions followed in various institutions. He served as an emergency preparedness coordinator and intelligence captain and major of the guard, among others.

"I've just always had an interest in law enforcement," Gilmore said. "I grew up in a law enforcement family. It was my natural career path."

Despite his various duties, the prisoners - whether low-risk and nonviolent or a condemned inmate in solitary - are similar.

"I didn't find it any more challenging working on this unit than any other," he said. "The interaction with prisoners is the same."

Unlike Hollywood's treatment of prison life in blockbusters such as "The Shawshank Redemption" or "The Green Mile," corrections staff at Greene rotate in and out, and none spend long stretches on death row, Gilmore said.

"It's not at all what you might see on TV," he said. "It's not at all how it's portrayed."

Gilmore described the unit as clean and orderly.

"You don't get a sense of uneasiness," he said.

The staff levels are higher on death row, a closed unit, with two correctional officers escorting inmates in and out of a cell, in which inmates spend 22 hours a day. Being this staff-intensive is expensive, adding an estimated $10,000 in yearly costs for each capital inmate.

Gov. Tom Wolf in February issued a moratorium on executions until a report studying the state's death penalty is complete, saying the system was unfair, dysfunctional and costly. When announcing the moratorium, the governor cited a Reading Eagle analysis of the cost, estimated at $350 million.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, as of Dec. 9, Secretary John Wetzel has signed 14 death warrant notices, including one from Berks County for 34-year-old Albert Perez.

Perez, who was sentenced to death for the 2007 strangulation deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her 5-year-old daughter, was scheduled to be executed April 17. The U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania, however, issued a stay of execution for Perez on March 31, according to state corrections officials.

Gilmore said he did not have an opinion on the governor's moratorium. And he said he hasn't heard whether the temporary reprieves have had any effect on prisoner morale.

To date, Wolf has issued two reprieves - one to York County's Hubert Michael, 59, and the other to Michael Ballard, 42, out of Northampton County. The others have been issued by the courts.

Still, Gilmore described the interaction prison staff has with inmates as responsive, which goes a long way toward reducing tension.

"The more we communicate with our offenders, the more on top of things that we are," Gilmore said. "It's that simple."

Gilmore added, "We expect cooperation and they expect it on their end and they get it."